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A review by turrean
Cinders: A Chicken Cinderella by Jan Brett
3.0
Beautiful illustrations, and a whimsical tale, as one always finds in a Jan Brett book.
I've raised chickens, so the concept was appealing on a personal level, but using chickens to retell the Cinderella story was...odd. I can certainly think of picture books with avian main characters that show lots of emotion--[b:Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus|191113|Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!|Mo Willems|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328495575s/191113.jpg|884960] immediately comes to mind. But Pigeon is a comic character in a wildly imaginative setting. [b:Make Way for Ducklings|29291|Make Way for Ducklings|Robert McCloskey|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1362580777s/29291.jpg|103828] tells a story with more realistically portrayed animals, but the story tells us about something real animals do: find a nesting spot, raise babies, and so on. Cinders is trying to tell a story of the imagination--a famous fairy tale complete with pumpkin coach and glass slipper--with a realistically portrayed flock. Cinders has real chicken feet, which somehow still fit in her glass slippers. Their faces have little expression.
The frame story, about a young Russian girl who cares for the flock, is gorgeously illustrated, but adds little. I guess I'd rather have seen a beautiful Russian version of the fairy tale, with humans.
I've raised chickens, so the concept was appealing on a personal level, but using chickens to retell the Cinderella story was...odd. I can certainly think of picture books with avian main characters that show lots of emotion--[b:Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus|191113|Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!|Mo Willems|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328495575s/191113.jpg|884960] immediately comes to mind. But Pigeon is a comic character in a wildly imaginative setting. [b:Make Way for Ducklings|29291|Make Way for Ducklings|Robert McCloskey|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1362580777s/29291.jpg|103828] tells a story with more realistically portrayed animals, but the story tells us about something real animals do: find a nesting spot, raise babies, and so on. Cinders is trying to tell a story of the imagination--a famous fairy tale complete with pumpkin coach and glass slipper--with a realistically portrayed flock. Cinders has real chicken feet, which somehow still fit in her glass slippers. Their faces have little expression.
The frame story, about a young Russian girl who cares for the flock, is gorgeously illustrated, but adds little. I guess I'd rather have seen a beautiful Russian version of the fairy tale, with humans.